{"id":45963,"date":"2023-08-23T23:06:48","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T15:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/police-are-investigating-an-indian-actor-for-joking-about-the-countrys-moon-lander\/"},"modified":"2023-08-23T23:06:48","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T15:06:48","slug":"police-are-investigating-an-indian-actor-for-joking-about-the-countrys-moon-lander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/police-are-investigating-an-indian-actor-for-joking-about-the-countrys-moon-lander\/","title":{"rendered":"Police are investigating an Indian actor for joking about the country\u2019s Moon lander"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Three years ago, India sought to land a small spacecraft on the Moon, Chandrayaan 2. However, due to a series of problems, including software errors, the lander crashed into the gray and lonely lunar surface during its final descent. This failure hit a sore spot for the country, which takes pride in its burgeoning space program and its growing list of achievements.<\/p>\n<p style=\"\">Now, there is a lot of national fervor behind India\u2019s second attempt to land on the Moon, with a spacecraft called Chandrayaan 3. After launching in mid-July, the spacecraft\u2019s Vikram lander is due to attempt a soft touchdown at 8:34 am ET (12:34 UTC) on Wednesday. Success is far from guaranteed, especially after Russia\u2019s Luna 25 spacecraft crashed into the Moon this past weekend.<\/p>\n<p>It was, therefore, perhaps inadvisable that a well-known Indian actor and politician named Prakash Raj took to the social media network formerly known as Twitter this weekend to share an image and comment, \u201cBREAKING NEWS:- First picture coming from the Moon by #VikramLander Wowww #justasking\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" class=\"\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden; width: 0px; height: 0px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;\" title=\"X Post\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;features=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%3D%3D&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1693280942012698805&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Farstechnica.com%2Fspace%2F2023%2F08%2Fpolice-are-investigating-an-indian-actor-for-joking-about-the-countrys-moon-lander%2F&amp;partner=tfwp&amp;sessionId=6146680299a80e5e89d6b069461f9b383aa41d38&amp;siteScreenName=arstechnica&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=6a3ad42b224df%3A1778106238597&amp;width=550px\" data-tweet-id=\"1693280942012698805\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-twitter-extracted-i1784865140326870837=\"true\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">BREAKING NEWS:-<br \/>\nFirst picture coming from the Moon by #VikramLander Wowww #justasking pic.twitter.com\/RNy7zmSp3G<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Prakash Raj (@prakashraaj) August 20, 2023<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The tweet included a photo of an Indian man\u2014who bore a striking resemblance to the leader of India\u2019s ISRO space agency, K. Sivan, at the time of Chandrayaan 2\u2019s failed landing\u2014dramatically pouring tea from one cup into another. This apparently was a joke, as Raj said himself. However, as an American space writer, the cultural meaning of the humor is lost on me. Anyway, some people did not take the attempt at humor very well.<\/p>\n<p>,<\/p>\n<p>Raj received responses from people who believed he wished ill on Chandrayaan 3. Others claimed he hoped it would fail because it would cast a negative light on the ruling party of India, the Indian People\u2019s Party, and the nation\u2019s prime minister, Narendra Modi. Raj lost a local election in 2019 as an independent candidate.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, some Hindu organizations took the matter so seriously that they filed an official complaint at the Banahatti police station, located in the Bagalkote district in Karnataka, a state in southwest India. Some news accounts have reported that Raj was \u201cbooked\u201d by police, but it is not clear that he has been taken into custody. Rather, the police have said they are investigating the matter.<\/p>\n<p>It does seem extreme to arrest someone for making a joke about India\u2019s Moon mission, but just to be safe, I will cross \u201cDelhi-based writer for The Onion\u201d off my bucket list as a journalist. Also, for the sake of India and its humorists, perhaps it would be best if things went well with Wednesday\u2019s attempted landing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three years ago, India sought to land a small spacecraft on the Moon, Chandrayaan 2. However, due to a series of problems, including software errors, the lander crashed into the gray and lonely lunar surface during its final descent. This failure hit a sore spot for the country, which takes pride in its burgeoning space [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4540,21],"class_list":["post-45963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-chandrayaan-3","tag-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}